Minnesota Wild forward Zach Parise will miss Tuesday’s game against the San Jose Sharks to be with his father, J.P. Parise, as the former NHLer battles lung cancer.
The team issued the following statement Tuesday evening:
The Wild’s leading scorer, with 30 points in 32 games this season, admitted it has been hard to focus on hockey lately.
“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with in my life,” Zach told the Star Tribune Tuesday. “You try and find that separation, you try to come here and be around the guys and not think about it, and [coach Mike Yeo] has been really good and the team’s been really good…They’ve been really supportive about it, but the hard part about it is you try to go to the rink and forget about stuff, but the hard part is…this was kind of our thing.”
J.P. Parise played 890 career NHL games for the the Minnesota North Stars, New York Islanders Boston Bruins, Cleveland Barons and Toronto Maple Leafs.
